Polarizing materials that absorb light waves at differing angles may be used to discriminate areas of interest. For example, light reflected or emitted from man-made objects often differs from natural objects in its polarization state. Accordingly, such reflected light may be used to detect polarized identification indicia, e.g., identification badges. Some prior art techniques are capable of reading polarized image data while at the same time being incapable of interpreting the meaning of such data in real-time.